Purple
by QoS
Summary: Why do the Stunticons have purple optics when all the other Decepticons have red ones?


**Motormaster**

What does it matter what color our optics are?

As long as they're not blue. And if they are I'll be happy to change 'em myself.

All this started in the commissary. It was after a battle, we drove right over the 'bots for a change. Felt good. Then when we went to get our energon one of Soundwave's runts held up an optic, said he'd found it in the hangar and asked who'd lost it.

Well, if any of us _had_ lost one, the green squad would've replaced it. You don't see too many one-optic 'cons around the base (and they'd be even less likely to see you. Heh). Except maybe Shockwave.

"It's red, so it's gotta belong to one of us," says the midget.

If it'd been blue, he wouldn't have been holding on to it for long, that's for sure. Scrapper would've taken it for one of his so-called "art projects", Swindle would've tried to sell it back to the 'bots. Wonder what Wildrider might've tried to do with it. Something crazy.

"Anyone except Thrust," Drag Strip chimes in. "He's got yellow optics."

To match a yellow streak a mile wide. But before I could say that, the mech himself pipes up. "And you lot. You've all got funny purple optics. Why's that?"

Funny? "Maybe the same reason you have a crushed nosecone," I tell him.

He looks confused. "I don't have a crushed nosecone."

"Not _yet_."

He runs away with his energon and no one else says anything about our optics. But I kept thinking about them all the way back to my quarters. Why purple? There wasn't anything in my databanks about it.

Purple's a Decepticon color though. Color of our emblem. My windows and Skywarp's stripes and Shockwave's plating. Maybe that's why Megatron gave us optics of that color – to show that we were created for the cause, and to set us apart from the rabble.

But it doesn't matter what his reasons were. I'd trust him to do a whole lot more than choose the best color for our optics – and I've got more important things to think about anyway.

**Wildrider**

We've all got purple optics?

Okay, I knew me and Breakdown and the boss do, and the one time I accidentally smeared wax on Dead End's visor he had to remove it to clean it and yeah, his optics are purple. But Drag Strip's got 'em too? Go figure. No wonder he doesn't like taking his visor off. He likes to pretend he's special, better than the rest of us.

So yeah, purple optics.

Slag, I wish Frenzy'd found a blue one. Know what I'd do with it? Replace one of mine with it and then go scare the 'bots late at night. Imagine it – you're patrolling the Ark, obeying the rules, kissing up to humans, and suddenly you see a movement among the rocks.

"Who – who goes there?" you squeak in a little tiny voice.

A purple _and_ a blue optic glow like fireworks in the dark. And while you're staring, not knowing what to do, someone shoots your legs off at the knees.

Red optics are okay, I guess, but me and Breakdown have red faceplates and it'd be kind of difficult to see optics of the same color in them. So my guess is that Megatron started building the two of us, then decided the rest might as well get the same color. Ha ha, Motormaster got modeled after Breakdown or me. He'd blow a fuel line if he ever found out.

Hey, if you sock an Autobot optic into your head do you see things differently?

Maybe I should get that red optic off of Frenzy, catch a 'bot and find out.

**Breakdown**

I instigated this… I mean, investigated this a long time ago. In our team, I'm the one who notices mechs and cameras and other humans looking at us, so I noticed optic color too.

You can tell nearly all Autobots from their optics. Except for that spy Mirage, he has yellow ones like Thrust. I hate him, by the way. Mirage, not Thrust. He could turn himself invincible and just look at you and watch you without you ever knowing it. Makes my plating crawl just to think about that.

Anyway, I looked it all up in the ship's database. Checked our virtual systems down to the last lens and every inch of circuitry. I thought we could see something extra with violet optics – ultraviolet maybe. Heh, I made a pan.

But there wasn't any such benefit. My optics can see infrared but that's because I'm a scout, not because they're purple. So I'll keep looking for the reason why Megatron chose that color for us. I'll find out.

**Dead End**

I can't think of a greater waste of time than wondering about the color of our optics. Or the color of anything, for that matter. It all turns the same shade of grey in the end.

Though I have to admit, purple does go rather well with a deep dark red. I suppose that's something to be grateful for. Until the Autobots decide to target me in retaliation for having a better paintjob than their garish combinations of primary colors.

Anyone who was aware of all this would be understandably depressed, so I can only conclude that my teammates either dwell in blissful ignorance or simply overlook reality in favor of other pursuits, no pun intended.

But as for why we have purple optics, I already know that. It's a color that isn't red or blue but some hybrid combination of both. Just as we're fast ground vehicles – but Decepticons, not Autobots. A gestalt, but not really a team. Megatron's elite hit squad, but we don't exactly hang around waiting for his every order. Neither here nor there.

We're different. We've always been different – each of us damaged in some way, but inwardly, where it can't be repaired.

Optic color is just one small sign of that.

**Drag Strip**

I know something about our optics that none of the other 'cons do.

After Thrust asked why we didn't have red optics like everyone else – in other words, why we weren't mass-produced like Seekers – Motormaster scared him off and we went back to our rooms to recharge. At least, everyone else did. I went to our common-room and flicked through channels on our TV, and that's where I heard an interesting phrase.

"_Born to the Purple". _

Know what that is? No, I didn't think so. It means that someone in the line of imperial succession – the heir of an emperor – came online in a great castle that had a purple chamber. Now this was an old human custom, but obviously even those little morons see the significance of purple.

And that's how _we_ were created. We were given personalities and activated for the first time in a purple-ish chamber, and Megatron gave us optics of the same color so we would always know who we are. Made by his own hand and clearly intended to be his successors one day. Of course, I did wonder why he didn't give himself purple optics while he was at it. But then again he's, what, ten million years old? He probably forgets things at that age.

So I turned off the TV and looked up the color purple (there's even a _book_ with that title, but it's not about us) on the 'net. Looks like in Earth history, that color was reserved for royalty and other people who could afford it.

I always knew we were set apart. Better than the rest.

Some day everyone else will know it too.

**From : Hook**

**To : Scrapper**

Why _did_ Megatron have the Stunticons fitted with purple optics?

**From : Scrapper**

**To : Hook**

Ran out of red ones.


End file.
